North Korea’s political Slippery Slope Post-War

It’s hard to believe that Korea was once a secluded country both socially and politically. Looking at current events and the ‘he said, she said’ battle between US, China and North Korea today, it’s almost as if peace and harmony never truly did exist.

Korea initially hit the headlines at the end of the 2nd World War back in ‘45, when a partition was installed to separate North Korea from South Korea. This resulted in the creation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a very communist strong aligned party situated in the North. It’s now very much a Yin and Yang setup with neither of the two parts of Korea communicating for the betterment of the country as a whole.

While Kim Il-sung (guerrilla former leader) was in power post-war, the Korean War broke out. The DPRK failed to unite Korea under one peaceful banner, whilst the United Nations led by the US had also failed to bring North Korea to its knees. As a result, the peninsula was divided by the Korean Demilitarized Zone and the United States stood firm on their decision to keep their military might in South Korea.

It was a resolution for both North and South Korea, but it wasn’t a peaceful one. Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994 led to his son Kim Jong-un succeeding him and both natural and political destruction challenged him from day one. This cumulative effect led to a severe economic crisis which Kim Jong-il managed with as much pervasive power as his father before him.

With Kim Jong-il’s death, his son Kim Jong-un succeeded him, and is the country’s supreme leader today. Under Kim Jong-un’s leadership, tempers have flared among the leaders of many countries. All too ready to flex his military muscles to the detriment of the United States, he’s found himself in a position of either defending his own country from attack, or attacking those who threaten him and his people. As of 2017, he supposedly possesses the necessary technology to fire nuclear weapons into territories never thought possible before.

Many countries such as the US, South Korea and the UK are running tests of their own in order to defend their countries against potential attacks.

As of September 2017, The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom had even carried out its first tests of a new generation air missile defence system. The aim of which is to intercept and destroy enemy missiles at supersonic speeds. This has been met with warnings from Kim Jong-Un in the past. He was quoted as saying Britain faces “a miserable end” if it joined forced with the US and South Korea in military drills.

While many countries don’t believe North Korea poses a massive threat, that threat is all too real. North Korea has been on a political slippery slope since World War II, a slope that was carved out by Kim Jong-il’s grandfather. Without a change in leadership or a new government structure, the policies and general political decisions may very well result in World War unlike anything we have ever seen.